The cramped, equipment-filled setting of a submarine film (Das Boot, 1981)

The submarine film is a subgenre of war film in which the majority of the plot revolves around a submarine below the ocean's surface. Films of this subgenre typically focus on a small but determined crew of submariners battling against enemy submarines or submarine-hunter ships, or against other problems ranging from disputes amongst the crew, threats of mutiny, life-threatening mechanical breakdowns, or the daily difficulties of living on a submarine.

The genre plays on the psychological tension of the submarine's crew and their unseen enemy, signified by a soundscape that may feature explosions, the ping of sonar, the creaking of the submarine's hull under extreme pressure, the alarm ordering the submarine to dive, and the threatening sound signatures of a destroyer's propellor or of an approaching torpedo.

Some 150 films have been made in the submarine genre between 1910 and 2010, variously depicting submarines in relatively realistic stories about World War I, World War II or the Cold War, or purely fictional and fantastic scenarios.

Characteristics

Submarine films have their own particular semantics and syntax, creating a film genre concerned specifically with submarine warfare. A distinctive element in this genre is the soundtrack, which attempts to bring home the emotional and dramatic nature of conflict under the sea. For example, in the 1981 Das Boot, the sound design works together with the hours-long film format to depict lengthy pursuit with depth charges, and as the critic Linda Maria Koldau writes,[1]

again and again, the mortal threat of the [sonar] ping, which signifies [the crew's] helpless exposure to the enemy.[1]

Koldau identifies the basic syntactic structure of the submarine genre as "outside is bad, inside is good."[1] The unseen outside means the enemy: this may be from nature, with elements such as water pressure threatening to crush the hull, sea monsters, or underwater rocks; or human opponents. Meanwhile, the inside of the submarine represents the human warmth and trust of the crew for each other and for their captain, their lives bound together by the situation.[1] To this scenario can be added elements from within such as mutiny, fire, discord, or accidents including radiation leakage; and from outside such as water, terrorism, disease, and weapons, while the plot may feature sudden switches from being the hunter to being the hunted.[1]

The soundscape may depict the creaking of the hull under pressure: as Koldau observes, this is both realistic and metaphoric, standing in for the fear and the responsibility on the shoulders of the crew.[1] Stress may further be expressed in the acoustic signature of specifically submarine threats, such as the swelling sound of an approaching destroyer's propellor, the soft buzz of an enemy torpedo, or the submarine's own alarm ordering an immediate dive.[1]

Another element of the soundscape less often remarked upon is simply silence, which can mean both safety (nothing is happening) and unseen danger, creating tension.[1]

List of submarine movies

This is a list of movies, grouped by the era in which they were made, in which a submarine plays a significant role in the storyline.[2] From 1910 to 2010, some 150 fictional films about submarines have been made.[1] Many of these are set in World War I, World War II, or the Cold War; others depict relatively "authentic" terrorist scenarios.[1]

Some movies depict historical events from actual battles or incidents, such as Above Us the Waves, a 1955 film which depicts the true story of the British Royal Navy's midget submarines attacks on the Tirpitz.[3] Other submarine movies develop a fictional plot created using more or less realistic details of naval warfare, such as the film U-571, which tells the story of a fictional U-boat in World War II.[4]

Other submarine films from the fantasy, science fiction or occasionally horror film genres depict entirely fictitious events,[1] such as the various film versions of Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

The Little American (1917) - US action-drama directed by Cecil B. DeMille and Joseph Levering, depicting ship of young Americans returning to ancestral French home torpedoed by a German U-boat and witness to German brutality while imprisoned; a.k.a. A Pequena Americana, a.k.a. La petite américaine

On the Jump (1918) - US comedy directed by Raoul Walsh, depicting US reporter who joins Liberty Loan campaign before he must rescue his girlfriend and stolen secret fuel formula from German agent rendezvousing with a German U-boat

Patriotism (1918) - US mystery-drama directed by Raymond B. West, depicting search in Scotland for German agent sending vital information to German U-boat fleet off the Scottish coast

Behind the Door (1919) - US action-drama directed by Irvin Willat, depicting German-American naval officer who takes revenge against the German U-boat commander who brutalized his wife after sinking his ship; a.k.a. Detrás de la puerta[6]

The False Faces (1919) - US espionage-drama directed by Irvin Willat, depicting a thief who becomes a reluctant US agent and infiltrates German U-boat to deliver vital enemy information; a.k.a. The Lone Wolf

Submarine Command (1951) - US drama directed by John Farrow, depicting a US submarine commander forced to confront the consequences of sudden high-sea submersion while the crew remain outside the submarine[24]

The Enemy Below (1957) - US action-drama directed by Dick Powell, depicting a duel between an American destroyer escort and a German U-boat in South Atlantic

Sea Wife (1957) - US action-drama directed by Bob McNaught and starring Richard Burton and Joan Collins, depicting a cargo ship dangerously jammed to excess capacity with evacuees fleeing the 1942 Japanese invasion and Battle of Singapore that is sunk by a Japanese Imperial Navy submarine; one scene depicts the submarine underwater while another scene shows the submarine on the surface

? (Battle under Orion) (2009) - Japanese action-drama directed by Tetsuo Shinohara, depicting an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine against a US destroyer near the end of the war; a.k.a. Manatsu no Orion, Last Operations Under the Orion

The Sinking of the Laconia (2010) - British-German historical drama directed by Uwe Janson about the sinking of the former British ocean liner RMS Laconia by U-156, which then, with three other U-boats (including U-507) and an Italian submarine, attempted to rescue nearly 2,000 passengers

Stingray (1964-1965) - adventures of the WASPs (the World Aquanaut Security Patrol) (Supermarionation)

Fantastic Voyage (1966) - set in the near future, an experimental submarine with special medical team aboard are reduced to microscopic size and injected into body of a brain-damaged scientist possessing military secrets in an attempt to repair his injury